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APPEAL 



FOR 



DISCUSSION AND ACTION 



ON THE 



SLAVERY QUESTION. 



BY H. D. RITCHEL, 

PA8T0R OF A CHCRCH ITT PLYMOUTH, CONS. 



AN 



APPEAL 



FOR 



DISCUSSION AND ACTION 



ON THE 



SLAVERY QUESTION. 



BY 11. D. KITCJIEL, 

PASTOR OF A CHURCH IN PLYMOUTH, CONif. 



HARTFORD : 

PRINTED BY L. SKINNER. 
1840. 



^ 3 o 



APPEAL. 

I THROW the following thoughts before serious minds in 
Connecticut, from a conviction that we have, in this State, 
reached a point where discussion becomes an imperative duty. 
Silence and inaction can no longer be our polic}^ in relation to 
slavery, without incurring, more deeply than ever, blood- 
guiltiness before God. We cannot stand where we have 
stood. A felt disapprobation of slavery, tacit, or but spar- 
ingly whispered, while our eloquent condemnation of the only 
extensive effort for its removal is familiar as the whip through- 
out the South, betrays a position we can no longer occupy. 
It has placed us before the South in the attitude of defenders 
of slavery. Whatever have been our real sentiments, slave- 
holding churches and christians have no covert from an in- 
tolerable consciousness of sin more effectual than in the ag- 
gregate of our sayings and doings about slavery. Certain, 
as I am, that some other position is about to be assumed by 
our churches and ministry, and deeply anxious that it should 
be a better, I venture to speak. I see no access to just views 
and action but through discussion. Were wiser heads and 
better pens employed at this crisis in searching for the more 
excellent way, I know of more and better reasons than any 
other can urge, persuading me to silence. But in tlie lack of 
such, let me speak, and let the rashness of the act be pardon- 
ed, since truth only can give it any weight. Let me speak 



to the hearts of my brethren as earnestly and fearlessly as 
better men might ; and for error in word or spirit I will plead 
no other favor than older men do. My plea is for discussion. 
Let us have it now, before any farther action. We shall be 
the wiser and the more harmonious for it. Hitherto we have 
acted without it, and the consequence has been that no com- 
munion of sentiment has been felt, no concert of action seen ; 
but distrust and misunderstanding instead. Sooner or later, 
discussion and decisive action in this matter are inevitable 
among us. Let us meet the question now, freel}^ propound- 
ing, candidly judging. There is that is right for us to hold 
and to do, and it can be ascertained. Let us search it out. 
The question of duty on this topic is one that demands and 
deserves immediate and earnest and general inquiry. Witli 
the hope of awaking others to this inquiry, I propose the fol- 
lowing views. 

I. Ownership in human beings is the characteristic fea- 
ture of slavery, the distinctive trait found in this relation, and 
found in no other. To sustain and enforce the claim of such 
ownership, the article of human "proper-ty, like other property, 
must be completely at the control of the proprietor. Distinct 
and independent Will, Feelings, Rights, Interests, Affections, 
Free-agency of its own, would damage the article ; and the 
first stroke of the system in annihilating these and subjecting 
the slave to the irresponsible will of another, covers the entire 
area of crime and wo ever traversed by the system in its de- 
tails. To realize the essential idea of slavery, and make man 
available property, these must inevitably be stricken down, 
and the slave be made, in body and spirit, an appurtenance of 
the master. Incvitahhj — for admit the possession and exer- 
cise of one proper right by the slave, and the whole arch is 
unlocked and crumbles. Gather around the slave all that 
the specious humanity of the master ever yields him ; view 
him as nominally a party in the marriage relation, a parent, 



6 

a child, or the apparent owner of somewhat ; and, after all, 
what are these but the mock relations of a tJung, to be abro- 
gated at its proprietor's pleasure ? 

That slavery may actually exist at all, therefore, it must 
be what it now is, in its appendages and circumstances. It 
is a great central wrong that demands a surrounding body- 
guard of wrongs to sustain it. Among these adjunct wrongs, 
conservative of slavery, and without which it could have no 
actual existence — without which this peculiar species of pro- 
perty would cease to be productive, and this system therefore 
cease to be, are these : — 

The denial of the slave of the first elements of instruction, 
thus shutting out that intellectual and moral hght which, with 
the ability to read, would certainly rush in to the damage of 
the article : — 

The practical abrogation of the marriage covenant, and of 
the parental and filial relations ; for, these being admitted 
and regarded, the property claim would meet antagonist and 
irreconcilable claims thwarting it at every step : — 

Ph3'sical restraints and inflictions at the sovereign discre- 
tion of the master : — 

The severest penalties for the assumption by the slave of 
any of the rights of humanity, even in defense of person or life 
itself: — 

As complete an annihilation, in short, of the man, in a legal, 
an intellectual, and a moral respect, as is demanded by the 
one pervading design to render him available as a thing. 
There is no option here ; these things imist be, or slavery as a 
system cease to be ; and of right they all may be, if the es- 
sential claim of ownership in man may be righteously enfor- 
ced. Of the whole frame-work of cruel wrongs which shore 
up this central iniquit}', not an item may be violated but to the 
downfall of the sj^stem. You cannot mend slavery. In- 
stinctively it resents every reformative touch as a fatal thrust 
at its heart. Every outpost is essential as the citadel itself. 
1* 



I feel thf need of no further defining. When the question 
is put, thcn,yo?- or against slavery, existing slavery, our Ame- 
rican slavery, it is idle, as it is cruel, to sit down over the 
woes of suffering millions, and curiously analyze their wrongs, 
to detect an element possibly in conception blameless, but as 
incapable of separate realization as a substance without qual- 
ities. Equally fallacious and cruel is it to ti-ace out and mag- 
nify the analogies between slavery and certain abuses of our 
self-owning system of free labor. I feel that no circumstan- 
ces can render righteous this claim of property in man, or, 
for a moment beyond the speediest possible repentance and 
actual evacuation of that claim, render him who persists in it 
any other than a sinner in the sight of God. Hvpothetical 
cases have never satisfied me. In the most plausible that 
can be stated, nominally owning a man for a limited time for 
his benefit, there will appear, on the face of it, such a lack of 
hearty good faith in making the claim, as tlii^ows it at once 
out of the S3^stem of slavery ; or, granting it slavery, it is inde- 
fensible, for we have in it benevolence to one endorsing and 
sustaining a system of mischief to millions. A partial be- 
nevolence may mitigate the rigors of the system ; but it will 
find no right way of enforcing a wrong claim. Sinful in itself, 
the claim to own a man will, in all the appropriate cicum- 
stances of its enforcement, uniformly involve additional sin. 
Mounting in the outset to the comprehensive crime of dis- 
mantling a man of himself, this system will not scruple, and 
it need not, if the first be right, at evolving the detail of neces- 
sary self-sustaining sins. 

II. Means for the removal of Slavery. 

The great aim of those who esteem slavery a sin should be, 
to lead to a similar conviction, and thus to voluntary and 
penitent abandonment of it, those who are in the sin. The 
body of those who condemn slavery is at the North, of those 
who are guilty of it at the South. The question becomes, 



then, what can and should the North do to lead the .South to 
repentance in this matter ? 

1. Beyond all other agencies to this end, tlio Christian 
Churches of the North can exercise one, on which, laithfully 
exerted, I should rely with greater confidence than on any or 
all, others. The Body of Christ labors, in one of its mem- 
bers, under this grievous disease. The whole suffers in the 
part. Let that which is sound then, exert, by its sympathetic 
connection, a restorative influence on the diseased. 

That the churches of the South extensively participate in 
the sin of slaver}'^, and even defend it as scriptural and just, 
none can deny. That this participation and defense give 
countenance and support to the iniquitous system, is as de- 
monstrable as that no community will ever become temperate 
while known inebriates are sheltered in the church. Con- 
science among evil-doers has always fidelity enough to de- 
mand, and usually comity enough to be satisfied with, the 
sanction of Christian participation in the doubtful course. 
Who can indulge the hope of release to the slave, while the 
Southern churches are slaveholding, and not a rebuke of this 
sin is heard, but rather apologies, palliations, and defenses, 
from the ministers of Christ, from S3mods, and Presbyteries, 
and General Assemblies f While these things continue the 
light of the Church on this matter is gross dai-kness. 

But what is the remedial agency ? If the churches of the 
South be, what they profess to be, Christian, churches — if the 
grace and spirit of Christ be in them, as a grain of mustard 
seed even, the fraternal rebukes of the Northern churches 
would not be in vain. J do not doubt they are a part of the 
Body of Christ. Let those question that, as in effect they 
do, who deny that " by one Spirit we are all baptized into 
one body" — who deny that there is, between the churclies of 
the North and those of the South, that unity of spirit which 
lays the foundation for mutual correction, and insures ulti- 
mate efficiency to the faithful wounds of a friend. If indeed 



it be so, that every channel of influence is closed between 
these churches, and no remonstrance however affectionate, 
no reasoning together however calm and scriptural, can be 
endured, then these or those are no churches of Christ. But 
if the way be open for such influence — if both have so " been 
made to drink into one Spirit" as to secure free passage for 
mutual rebuke, exhortation and entreaty between them, then 
why should we not avail ourselves, for Christ's sake, whose 
body we believe wounded, of this sensibility to oar rebukes, 
this openness on the part of Southern churches to kindly and 
corrective influences from us ? Who will maintain there is no 
such foundation in the common piety of the American church- 
es, that the one part may hopefully labor for the purification 
of the other ? Here is a door of hope, fiistened open by the 
" One Spirit" beyond the power of delicate circumstances 
to close it. Why shall we not enter it ? Believing slavery a 
sin, why are not the voices of all Northern churches heard, 
clearly, unitedly, tenderly rebuking and entreating the South- 
ern, to purge themselves of this great wickedness ? That smi- 
ting should be a kindness — such reproof would be as excel- 
lent oil, breaking no head, but softening many hearts into 
mercy for the slave. As members of the same bod}', jealous 
of its purity and of our Master's honor in it, as hrcthren in the 
Lord, we are bound to do this. And no deeper wrong could 
be done our Southern brethren than is done by those, who, 
to justify inaction, presume them not oril}^ incorrigible, but 
utterly inapproachable. 

Has it been tried ? B}^ individual churches it may have 
been, but never by such numbers as to be the voice of the 
Christian North — never but amid so many surrounding voi- 
ces, and deeds louder than voice, contradicting, or doubting, 
or qualifying, that the single reproofs have fallen short, while 
the clamors of the many have gone on like the voice of many 
waters, and, interpreted by Southern wishes to Southern li- 
king, have found every where south of Dixon's line free 



course and thankful audience. Alas ! how often have our 
churches, and our assemblies of the ministry spoken on this 
matter *' half in the speech of Ashdod, according to the lan- 
guage of cacli people" — condemning slavery fully, l)ut all 
that was esteemed by the South opposed to slavery more 
fully — yielding to the petitions of abolitionists a condemna- 
tion of slaver}'- which conscience would not down widiout, 
but in a tone that told full well how unwelcome was the 
whole matter, or accompanied \Aith a worse than neutralising 
castigation of the petitioners. Like two litigious children, 
the one guilty, the other disliked, and both presumed b\^ the 
impatient parent to be in the wrong, slavery and organized 
anti-slavery have both been boxed and neither bettered. The 
sturdy criminal can well bear, as he has often and gladly 
borne, his share of the rod, for the hearty stripes on his ac- 
cuser. Such, I fear, has been the character and effect of the 
larger share of ecclesiastical action in Connecticut touching 
this subject. The Southern churches have listened, still 
listen, with no ordinar}^ solicitude, for the voice of Connecti- 
cut. Beyond that of almost any other portion of the North, 
our decision in this matter would find a thousand threads in 
the w^eb of our social and commercial intercourse, conducting 
and empowering it throughout the South. What has that 
voice been — and what is it .'* A clear-toned and unfaltering 
rebuke of slavery simply T No : but with more and sharper 
accompanying rebukes to the only operative mode of opposi- 
tion to slaverv, expounded by consistent daily clamors against 
ultraism, and borne on the southward gale with the eloquent 
rattle of mob-arguments and the crash of exploded temples ! 
The truth is out and past winking down, that in Southern es- 
timation, thanks to the two-edged character of our ecclesias- 
tical action, the Connecticut churches are pro-slavery, or, what 
is well nigh as consolatory, if they do rather condemn slavery, 
they more condemn the abolitionists. He that is against my 
foe is for me. Our excellent resolutions against slavery are 



10 

forgiven as mere New-Englandisms, generated by our rocky 
soil and certain whimsical recollections of the old Ma\'^-flowcr 
affair — and so forgotten — pardoned for the redeeming mass 
of circumstantial evidence of a contrary conviction. 

This is seen and felt among us. And what is the plea now 
with our churches and pastors ? " We have been thrown 
into a false position by the intolerable doings of the abolition- 
ists." I believe many, yes, the body, of our churches and 
clergy are in a false position. I do not, cannot believe they 
are where they are from feelings of favor to slavery, or 
from lack of passive wishes for its downfall. And they have 
had no common provocation to assume this attitude of intense 
opposition to organized anti-slavery action, even at the ex- 
pense of being esteemed, by the South at least, indifferent 
towards slavery. There has been much connected with such 
organization from which I would heartily have joined them in 
flying, but that all other ground was claimed of the enemy. 
Not to be an abolitionist, I must consent, be what I might, to 
be esteemed pro-slavery. Better to endure, and if possible 
correct, a body mainly right, than for a njoment to be even 
miscounted favourable to slavery. 

But let me say a few things concerning this process of 
"being thrown into a false position." It is urged as a tri- 
umphant vindication of being in a false position, that they 
were thrown there by the character of anti-slavery action. 
Are then the churches and pastors of Connecticut that light 
projectile body to be tossed at the mercy of every ultra move- 
ment to the pole of the opposite error ^ With equal and 
wiser abhorrence of slavery glowing within them, if the abo- 
litionists went mad, could they find no other position but a 
fulse one — no high, broad ground, on which Connecticut might 
rally her piety and love of freedom, aloof from ultraism, 
but still overlooking the foe? There was — there is such 
ground, without flying in panic from the false position, so 
judged, of the abolitionists, to tlie falser position of combating 



11 

theirs as a worse sin than shivery, and thus effecting the 
grandest diversion yet produced in favor of shivery itself. 
I do not know that it woukl have been a more popuhir posi- 
tion, or allowed by the South to be any other than very aboli- 
tionism. But if the grand })(>iiil be not to he called abolitionist^ 
let us hear no further c()m])l;iial of the false position ; for most 
signally it achieves that end. liut, distinct from the organiza- 
tion now operating, and still wider from the worse ground of 
this false position, had the ministry proclaimed those truths 
which God in his providence called for, and when he called 
for them ; had our churches, and associations, and consocia- 
tions, spoken out firmly and affectionately to the southern 
churches in letters of rebuke, not sufiring sin upon their 
brethren ; had this course been persevered in with prayer 
and consistent action at hon:ie, slavery had now been nigher 
its end, and much of that which has set us at false issues had 
never been. The false position of the son of Amittai should 
have taught us that there would be a " mighty tempest" in 
the way toward Tarshish.* That long avoided ground still 
invites us. If other organizations are bad, the church, I am 
hapi^y to remember, has been lauded as the grand means of 
good. Let it be employed then ; even yet it is not too late. 
Let the churches and pastors no longer be driven from their 
propriety into disastrous positions by the doings of any set of 
men. Let them not rush from what they deem an injudicious 
mode of Avarfare with sin, into doubtful relations to the sin 
itself. 

But the repellency has been mutual. If it has had power 
to drive the weightier body of the church and pastors so far 
from their orbit, would it be strange if it had pressed the 
lighter body of abolitionism completel}^ out of the system of 
Truth and propriet3'^ ^ With far greater force may the aboli- 
tionists plead that they have been thrown by harsh treatment 

* Jonah, 1 : 1 — 5. 



12 

into the false position of apparent hostility to the ministiy. 
While there is such a rush all around us to find shelter behind 
childish defenses of acknowledged wrong, is there no pardon 
for the abolitionists that they too have veered from the right 
under the pressure of popular and ecclesiastical odium ? 

But let us use the right word: we are not tliroum, into po- 
sitions — we take them. If manifold occasions have existed 
for this departure on both hands from the middle truth, we 
have each, nevertheless, departed voluntaril}^ and chosen the 
ground we occupy. We are all of us where we have chosen 
to be on this matter. 

But the agency of the churches, the best by far, for the 
removal of slaveiy, is not employed. So far from operating 
effectively to produce in southern churches conviction of this 
sin and conversion from it, our churches have assumed, and 
still maintain, a position they plead shall be considered a false 
one, and which is well known to support slavery scarcely 
less in efiect than would their elaborate defense of it. While 
this continues to be the case, other means, good, though not 
the best, must be brought into action, 

2. Organized anti-slavery action. Let it be well considered 
why we resort to this instrument. The churches and their 
pastors declined the work. They still prefer a false position 
to any hearty operation against this sin. Every avenue to 
the southern conscience which northern piety might have com- 
maniled was nefjlected. The channels throuijh which other 
sins were assailed were shut in behalf of this. It was widely 
felt, that among our sins of peculiar guilt, slavery was one, 
against which God's providence was loudly calling for ac- 
tion. But the religious press shrunk from the work. Direct 
and hearty anti-slavery appeals could find no utterance 
through the Tract Societ}^ — none through our Quarterlies, 
literary or rehgious j while our weekly prints and the desk 
furnished rare exceptions to the rule of silence in respect to 
the immediate duties in this matter. Opposition to other sins 



13 

cither found organs ready for its use, or framed thenn on the 
voluntary principle. In such a dilemma, to meet such an 
exigency, the Anti-Slavery Society was instituted. I believe 
it to be, next to the church, the best instrumentality that could 
be devised. A nobler utterance of manly American senti- 
ment, I know not where to find, than in the Declaration issued 
at its organization. Nobler ends were never proposed, or 
more unexceptionable means for their accomplishment, than 
in the Constitution it adopted. Of the thousand indiscre- 
tions, the violence in word or spirit, the reviling again when 
reviled, which have too often characterized the action of anti- 
sla,very societies, agents, and individuals, I have no more 
defense to make, than for the thousand and one provocations 
to all these, which they have never been suffered to lack. 
Doubtless over the blood of Lovejoy, and the flames of Penn- 
sylvania Hall, and of other halls yet more sacred, under severe 
popular odium, with L3''nch tribunals sitting in judgment on 
them, and jury mobs delivering missile verdicts around their 
heads, they have often shown themselves human. Denied a 
hearing by those who bitterl}^ reviled and derided them, ex- 
cluded from the ordinary places of assembling, and subject 
to indignities such as we ask no other men to bear coolly, they 
have sinned in not uniforml}'- blessing their persecutors. In 
asserting and maintaining at all hazards the contested right 
of peaceably assembling and freely speaking for the slave, 
they have not sinned. The blood shed at Alton, the damaged 
and demolished edifices, the grievous commotion so widely 
witnessed, shall yet find ample recompense in the tested 
right of free thought, speech, and action, for which they are 
slowly working out a triumph among us. That triumph is 
already beginning to be realized — elsewhere, I fear, more 
than in Connecticut. 

But a weightier objection to organized anti-slavery, has 
been the crudities that have sprung up in connection with 
it, and sought to make it an organ for their own propagation. 



14 

These have been grievous indeed, and sincerely lamented 
more widely within, than without the anti-slavery ranks. 
By the manoeuvre of last May, a steamboat load of Boston 
notions secured a majority in a business meeting, and thus 
perverted the National Society from its original design into 
the instrument of a faction. But the result was a purgation 
and a triumph. The spirit of sound anti-slavery departed, 
and devised in another Constitution securities against the in- 
vasion of error. The society in this state, also, is anii-slavery 
purely. There are individual abolitionists friendly to the 
obtruded sentiments ; but of these few the fraction is exceed- 
ingly small who would wish to fasten extraneous matters 
upon the anti-slavery organization. Their private opinion is 
their right, which we would not invade if we could ; but the 
obtrusion of these alien doctrines will be permitted as soon 
by the Temperance, as by the Anti-Slavery Society of Con- 
necticut. The grand design of opposition to slavery simply, 
will be maintained. The privilege of secession remains ; and 
purity is preferable even to unity of organization. 

Instances of gross fanaticism have always been found inci- 
dentally accompanying great reforms. The history of the 
Lutheran reformation should have mitigated our astonish- 
ment when a right principle again became the occasion of 
fanaticism. Munzer, and Cellary, and Stubney, carried the 
doctrines of Luther to equal, and to a surprising extent the 
very same, extremes with those to which we have seen anti- 
slavery principles perverted. The abuse of government led, 
in both cases, to the no-government theory. As it always 
happens, these incidental excesses were charged on the re- 
form, and declared by its enemies to be only the legitimate 
results of Protestantism. Let us think of these things. 

My confidence, therefore, in the anti-slavery organization, 
as a means to the removal of slavery, is undiminished. The 
turbulent opposition it has encountered in its employment of 
free speech and a free press, proves such instrumentality 



15 

neither needless nor inufricimit. I have no passion for or- 
ganization in itself; but I am reconciled to adopt it, as a 
means not improper, and the best allowed us, to an end which 
I cannot abandon. It is an imperfect and cumbrous instru- 
ment; but much has been, and run yet be done with it, with 
all its disadvantages; and / Imj (he responsibility of all that is 
ineffective or disastrous in the Jefritimate use of this irfcrior means., 
on those icho denied to us in Ixhnlf <f svffering millions the benefit 
of a better. There is a better, 3'es, a perfect organization for 
the removal of every sin. Faithful and energetic action in 
our churches would have exerted an irresistible purifying in- 
tiuence on the churches of the South. But inaction, and 
silence, and guilty fraternity with bodies of slaveholding pro- 
fessors never rebuked, are preferred to such action; and 
compel the employment of the most eligible substitute- Glad- 
ly would we abandon the imperfect for the perfect. 

It is objected to this particular application of the voluntary 
principle, and the objection is extended by some among us 
to certain other applications of it, that it lies open to the 
membership, and therefore to the possible control and per- 
version of any who choose to creep in unawares for such an 
end : that, however righteous the proposed end may be, it 
lies at the mercy of faction, requiring no qualification for mem- 
bership but a sentiment of opposition to slavery, and there- 
fore possessing no security against such an influx of non- 
resistants, for example, as shall characterize the whole 
organization, and render it, at their will, an instrument to 
their ends. There is such a liability to perversion. Is it 
peculiar to the anti-slavery organization ? The objection, if 
it have any force, implies that it is; while, in fact, it is a lia- 
bihty common to this, with the Home Missionary, Bible, and 
Tract organizations. I have the Constitutions of those socie- 
ties before me, — societies, be it remembered, which have 
been sovereignly excepted from recent denunciations ot vol- 
untary associations, — and I ask to be shown a single limita- 



16 

tion to the privilege of membership, a single barrier against 
perversion in these, that is not found in the anti-slavery or- 
ganization. Their Constitutions furnish none. For all these, 
the way is open for such an incursion of non-resistants, male 
and female, into these favored societies, before their next 
business meetings, as shall place Garrison in the Presidency 
of either of them, and give Abb}^ Kelly the floor. Such an 
event would involve no grosser violations of the spirit and 
letter of their Constitutions, than was perpetrated by the 
doings of last May to the Constitution of the American Anti- 
Slavery Society. They contain nothing, so far as I can dis- 
cover, more definitive in their terms of membership, no safe- 
guards against a factious and fanatic majority, who may 
understand and enforce a Constitution as they please. To 
such liabilities, all societies, not specially guarded, are ob- 
noxious in common. The American Anti-Slavery Society 
was not thus guarded ; the American and Foreig7i Anti-Slavery 
Society, which, under this new name, embodies, we believe, 
the single-hearted anti-slavery sentiment of the old organiza- 
tion, is thus guarded. It has lost nothing but the old name 
and the elements of distress: it has gained purit}^ and peace, 
and adopted checks that will preclude the recurrence of a 
similar rupture. The Connecticut Anti-Slavery Society has 
also effectually provided against another outrage of decency 
in its sessions. 

Over these facts I call for joy on the part of those who have 
been wont to alledge as the grand reason of their repugnance 
to the Anti-Slavery Society, its doubtful relations to disor- 
ganizing doctrines — who hated slavery, but would not en- 
dorse Garrison. Let us see their grateful admission of our 
present blamelessness, and a change in their feeling and 
action towards us, such as their professed grief seemed to 
promise before. Have we not more explicitly signified ab- 
horrence of the doctrines in question, than our churches have 
of slavery itself f 



17 

But it maybe said, that, tliough the Bible, the Home Mis- 
sionary, and the Tract Societies can boast even less than the 
Anti-Slavery Society of coiisi'itut'tonal checks against perver- 
sion, yet there are those of" a /rto/v// nature, springing from the 
character of their objects, which furnish them a peculiar secu- 
rity against perversion. But are the ends they aim at such 
as to attach to them all, and only, the incorruptibly good ? 
What attraction to the trusty alone, and repulsion only to the 
unsafe, has the design of sending forth a Tract, a Bible, or a 
Missionary, which are wanting in the design of liberating and 
saving our home-bred heathen in the South ? Nay, are there 
not obvious reasons for presuming greater strength and trust- 
worthiness of principle, a more inflexible integrity, in those 
who have espoused the ignominious cause of the slave, in 
defiance of an unprecedented odium, than among those whose 
aims and operations are the theme of general praise? Whom 
should we expect to find most readily entertaining the ques- 
tion of duty to the despised bondman, and fearlessly espous- 
ing his unpopular cause ? I put the question fearlessly in 
Connecticut, and challenge a rigorous scrutiny of its import : 
Who, and wltat, are the known friends of the slave, not in 
respect of wealth, rank, and worldly eminence, but of reli- 
gious character, pious self-denial, and prayerful zeal in all 
good works? Go into our churches, — are the abolitionists in 
them the sluggish and reluctant in revivals and our accustom- 
ed charities ? Is no other reason assignable than the obtru- 
siveness of abolitionism, for the frequency with which the 
slave finds a voice in our meetings for prayer ? I do not 
assert that peculiar regard for the enslaved is essential to de- 
voted piety ; the nature of the case gives a reason, however, 
for finding them frequently conjoined. There is nothing, 
then, in the end or the means of anti-slavery societies pecu- 
liarly exposing them to the incursion of the turbulent and 
unsound. No, not even their relation to political duties can 
just y be excepted. Our State Sjciety, and the American 



18 

and Foreign Society, urge on their members only the duty of 
acting at the polls, as elsewhere, consistently with professed 
principles. Have our churches never recognized, have our 
pastors never urged, the same ? If they have, they have done 
all the Society has done — if they have not, it is time they had. 
Anti-slavery individuals have done more in conventions, and 
so have our church members ; and our churches may as justly 
be held responsible for the doings of their members in political 
measures, right or wrong, as the Anti-Slavery Society for in- 
dependent nominations, be the same wisdom or folly. 

" Preach the Gospel," we are significantly told, as if it 
were a means we had abandoned for carnal weapons. We 
honor the advice, and give emphasis to the whole command, 
" to ever}'' creature" — the wltole Gospel, to all, "rightW divid- 
ing the word of truth," as prevalent sin and the Providence 
of God shall demand. Had this command been obeyed, no 
anti-siavery society had ever been. But there were parts of 
the Gospel which were not preached to any creature. North 
or South. The slaveholder sat in northern slips and southern, 
equally secure from the shafts of rightly divided truth. Our 
brethren were continually passing to the South, and dealing 
unrebuked in human property. Our churches were, and still 
are, deplorably ignorant or careless of the relations of the 
Gospel to this sin. The alternative was, to acquiesce in the 
preaching of the Gospel, expurgated of its anti-slavery por- 
tions ; or to employ the best means at command to publish 
the supplement in some other way. The Anti-Slavery So- 
ciety does preach the Gospel in its long silenced application 
to slaver^s exerting at the same time whatever other lawful 
influences it may against this sin. And this has been styled 
a " mob-gospel," because, forsooth, the hands of the Presby- 
tery have not been laid on the organs of its promulgation ! 
Will Parsons Cook, to whose ingenuity the peculiar institution 
owes this last refuge, inform us if he holds that none but of 
the ministry may utter Gospel truth for the saving of men .'' 



19 

Is all the utterance of truth by pious laymen, by Sabbath 
School teachers, by unordained editors of religious j)rints, by 
temperance agents and publications, a mob-gospel, an inva- 
sion of the sacred functions of the ministry f Tlie obvious 
fallacy lies in the parallel attempted between the assumption 
of judicial power by a rabble, setting aside the constituted 
authorities, while they were ready to give ample justice ; and 
the assumption, by a society, of a right to preach through its 
agents a part of the Gospel which the ministry do not preach. 
We propose decisive issue here: If the offenses which mobs 
have assayed to rectify, had been important infringements of 
law, and the officers of justice had so generally refused to act 
for the protection of the community, that the great ends of 
law were lost, the right of protection would then have revert- 
ed to the People, and their exercise of it would have assumed 
the character of justifiable revolution. It was not so : they 
set aside the more than ready hand of legal justice, because 
justice for provable crime was not what they wanted, but 
vengeance for legal, though unpopular acts. Therefore, it 
was mob-law. Had the whole Gospel been faithfully preach- 
ed by the appointed ministry, and the Anti-Slavery Society 
had then instituted its agencies to ttdce a part of the Gospel 
out of their hands, because it wanted, not truth, but more 
than the truth against slavery, a mob-gospel had then been 
introduced. But this was not the case. There was a giant 
sin in our land, infecting the whole church, either by actual 
participation in it, or by its thousand-handed influence touch- 
ing every part of the body of Christ — a sin that periled among 
us all the ends- for which a Gospel was given. But the 
preaching of the Gospel as applicable to this sin, could not 
be had when sought at the hands of the ministry. When, 
therefore, to secure the purity and being of the church, and 
the liberty and salvation of millions, the Anti-Slavery Society 
adopted measures for the promulgation of the silenced part 
of the Gospel, it was a justifiable and obligatory proceeding. 



20 

This specious objection falls, then, simply because the as- 
sumed analogy happens not to exist. " Mob-gospel" is a 
term, however, that will need no intrinsic justice to give it 
mischievous currency. Its sound will deservedly entitle it to 
high rank among the arguments diligently sought out and set 
in order against the in-any-wise-to-be-condcmned abolitionists. 

Among the many and various objections urged from the 
desk by those who seem not content even to pass by on the 
other side, a favourite one is, "It is a public opinion society : 
3'^ou rely on a power of opinion which you are creating in one 
part of the country, to be employed in bearing" down a sin in 
another part." Public opinion consists in the prevalent sen- 
timent of the community ; its elementary nature is seen in 
the influence one man's known sentiments exert over another; 
aninfluejce as universal as human society. Like the social 
principle, fiom which it springs, it is not to be condemned 
indiscriminatel}" — no, not even to quench abolitionism. Pub- 
lic opinion is good or ill as its end may be. Strange that the 
alarm, then, should be sounded only when it takes direction 
against slaver^^ But does the Anti-Slavery Society rely 
upon opinion as its weapon against slavery ? No ; truth is 
its weapon, and it has to do with public opinion chiefly as the 
intermediate and indispensable means of wafting its argu- 
ments and appeals to the southern conscience. It does not 
reject the direct influence of opinion ; it rejoices in the tide 
of disapprobation which is swelling throughout Christendom 
against Slavery. But its chief reliance is not on this as the 
ultimate agency. Without appealing to public opinion, so 
far as to create interest in its ends and raise the requisite 
means for their accomplishment, how could the Board of 
Foreign Missions operate ? That society labors incessantly 
and unrebuked to create a general sentiment in Christian 
countries that shall yield it the means of operating among 
heathen more remote than those of our own South. So of 
each of our benevolent societies ; each aims to secure such 



21 

favorable convictions among the people as shall lead them to 
adopt it as their organ, and labor tlirough it for the accom- 
plishment of a specific end. Such is the design of the Anti- 
Slavery Society; and if the general sentiment it seeks to enlist 
for this end, shall also operate directly, by its own legitimate 
force, and from a necessity in our social nature, to counter- 
work that corrupt public opinion by which slavery is sustain- 
ed, and shame that inhuman system from the world, let us 
thank God and take courage. 

Nor is the appeal of the Anti-Slavery Society to public 
opinion more indiscriminate than that of the Foreign Mis- 
sionary or Bible Society. Each of die three solicits the favor 
and aid of all men ; each aims at a definite end, and meddles 
with public opinion only as it bears on that end. Neither 
rejects the hberality or the patronage of any description of 
men. Each wisely acts in one part for the benefit of a re- 
mote part. If it has ever appeared the design of the Anti- 
Slavery Society to wield opinion as its ultimate weapon, it 
has been owing to the stress of opposing opinion. Throw the 
American Board into equal odium, and it would give, in its 
efforts to win the favor necessary to its being and action, 
equal and the same evidence of such a design. And were the 
conversion of the world pending, as is the removal of the 
national part of our slavery, on a vote of Congress, it would 
be the duty of the Board to labor to secure such a vote ; and, 
so doing, it would appeal to pubUc sentiment just as the Anti- 
Slavery Society does. 

I can scarcely believe that a mind, penetrated wiili a just 
view of slavery as unutterably woful and guilty, would object 
that " the aim of anti-slavery action is only the removal of sin 
in one of its developements, while it leaves untouched the 
principle of sin in the heart." Yet no objection is more relied 
on than this, though a thousand times answered of late, and 
of old when it was a chief weapon against the temperance 
organization. " You aim only to cleanse the outside of the 



22 

cup : you lop only a twig from the tree of sin." Be it so : 
still it is a twig of evil — the humanization of near 3,000,000 
beings would be at least a small positive good, a crumb 
worth adding to the stock of human weal. May we not aim 
at it then, even though we do not carry the citadel of all evil.^ 
especially as our efforts for this have no necessary inter- 
ference with those which we aid in employing for the grand 
end of subduing all hearts to the truth; and inasmuch, also, 
as our object accomplished would remove serious obstacles to 
the progress of the Gospel in its purity, and throw within 
reach of it millions to whom now it has no access. The miti- 
gation of human wretchedness, the increase of happiness on 
earth, the suppression of sins peculiarly pernicious in human 
societ}'^, are objects at which the Christian may laudabl}^ aim, 
though they do not impl}'^ the renewal of the heart. Distinct 
regard for the part, neither excludes nor conflicts with regard 
for the whole. Our Pattern, while on earth, often healed the 
body, when he did not the soul. Nor ar3 those abolitionists 
who unwiseh'' suffer their regard for the slave to enter, or 
seem to enter, too largely into all their benevolence, necessa- 
rily chargable with caring more for the less than for the 
greater. I have not been surprised, though I have been 
grieved, that some, gazing intently on the overshadowing and 
pervading mischiefs of slaver}^, have felt that effort in other 
directions would be so futile, or at such disadvantage, till 
slavery were abolished, that they have turned their whole 
heart to this. 

Whenever a prevalent sin can be found, overt, definable, 
and excluded from the range of the sacred desk, it becomes 
proper to enlist against it the voluntary principle. Overt and 
determinate the sin must be, or it does not admit of this mode 
of reformative action ; it must be denied its proper treat- 
ment by the constituted ministry, also, before such recourse 
becomes needful. The multiplication of societies is an infe- 
licity, but the existence of such siiis demanding them, leaves 



23 

us no option but between this mode of action and acquies- 
cence in unrebuked sin. 

Great difficulty seems to be felt by some minds respecting 
the propriety of the voluntary principle. Men who wen; lore- 
most yesterday in the application of this principle, to-day are 
in consternation that it proves available to the abolitionists. 
Now it appears doubtful, of a sudden, whether the disastrous 
and unforseen applicability of this principle to the removal of 
slaverv, is not more than sufficient to countervail its moral 
triumphs for the last ten years. Is it part of the "false posi- 
tion" thus to move heaven and earth against this most com- 
mon-sense and long-tried principle? Must every fortress be 
fired, and the whole land be laid waste, the entire apparatus 
of moral instrumentalities suspected, changed, denounced, so 
soon as they are found favoring the anti-slavery movement.'' 
The precedent of the Christian church, founded by Infinite 
Wisdom on this very principle, ought to assure us that it has 
no intrinsic impropriety, and that, when the church vacates 
its high office in respect to any sin, and other agency is de- 
manded, the proper and best substitute may be constructed 
on the same principle. Take the case in hand : Individuals, 
in different parts, feel deeply over the desolation of slavery ; 
they find it a forbidden topic in the desk, in the meetings of 
the church, in social circles for prayer, and in the religious 
prints. Singly they are powerless. To yield their convic- 
tions and acquiesce in the prevalent indifference to this sin, 
or to gain by union the power to be heard, is their alternative. 
They associate for a well defined purpose — at first few and 
informal, but gradually acquiring numbers and form, until 
the product is a society, embodying thousands who cast their 
mfluence and liberality into a common stock for the diiiusion 
of light on the point at issue. Now, the end being good, and 
fairly within the limits suggested above, will some one, who 
shudders over the gregarious tendencies of the times, point 
out the exceptionable step in this process r May I call in the 



24 

aid of my neighbor to effect a good be3'^ond my power ? Two 
failing, may a third — a tenth, if needed, come to our help ? 
If the work demand the action of a thousand, and articles 
definitive of the object and the means to be employed, may 
we admit them ? If one rejects this doctrine and another 
that — if here be an infidel, and there an atheist — but all 
waving irrelevant peculiarities for a common good end, which 
calls for collision on none of these points — is the association 
vitiated in its purpose or its action ? Must I, who am of anoth- 
er, perhaps better, faith than they all, abandon the work, be- 
cause, in lifting the slave from the pit of his thraldom, I find 
toiling at my side one who does not worship in this mountain? 
If these steps be admitted, j^ou have the Anti-Slavery Socie- 
ty ; if not admitted, point me the step that does not pass 
freely and unchallenged in other benevolent operations, not 
burdened with pity to the slave. If the cooperation of the 
infidel and the atheist spoil the work, let inquisition be made ; 
for while our missionary and other benevolent efforts promise 
^incidental earthly good as among their results, so long they 
will be, as they now are, aided by the irreligious. 

So much justice demands in defense of the anti-slavery 
organization. But let it be remembered, I defend it only as 
the instrument better than any other in our power, while the 
best is denied this work. The church of Christ is adequate 
to cover the whole ground of our obligations. It could have 
access to our southern brethren through the channel of Chi'is- 
tian fellowship. It could so inculcate on us all our duties as 
Christians and as citizens, that a separate organization would 
no longer be needed. But before such organization can be 
dismissed, an immense and radical change must be actually 
witnessed in the entire conduct of the body of our churches, 
relative to slavery. We have been called on to disband, on 
the strength of a hope that the churches will enter the field. 
We shall never disband on such a precarious and wholly 
prospective possibility. Deferred already till our hearts are 



25 

sick over it, the hope of energetic and faithful church action 
demands some substantial and liberal first fruits to sustain it. 
Before we can abandon operations which time has shown to 
be effective, we must see the better system in the field, 
winning us to itself, not by promises of what it will do, while 
it stands leaning on its weapon, and refusing to strike a stroke 
until we retire from the contest ; but by entering tlic field in 
that better way, with its better weapons, and tactics, and 
courage, and success, and giving us assurance that the war 
will not cease with the present mode of attack. And there 
is room, ample room for the churches to charge in from their 
present position, even though the abolitionists hold the ground 
they have so hardly won, at least till they hear their fir^^t gun, 
or see "far off" their coming shine." Nothing hinders, unless 
possibly the dread of incurring our name — a dread which it 
has been publicly admitted, profanes with " ingenious qualifi- 
cations," in many of our desks, the breathing of a full heart 
in prayer for the slave. It is insisted, also, that the abolition- 
ists shall quit the work before the churches will think of es- 
pousing it. These things have sometimes tempted me to 
imagine that the position could not be very false M'hich was 
preferred to a mere breath of obloquy. Before we can dis- 
band, we shall see more, far more, in Connecticut, than here 
and there a pastor who dares, in plain Saxon terms, to speak 
of slavery as it is, and of our relations to it as they are — more 
than here and there a parish where he would not speak thus 
to scowling congregations, and at the peril of his place — more 
than here and there a church atoning, in its own estimation, 
for 3^ears of slumber, and laying up large store for the future, 
by voting over again the " Norfolk Resolutions" — more even 
than the excellent Resolutions of the last General Association. 
What then do we demand ^ 

1. That those principles of die Gospel which apply to this 
sin, be so fully and frequently unfolded by our pastors gene- 
rally, that the ignorance or apathy prevalent among our 
3 



26 

churches respecting the character of slavery, and their duties 
towards it, shall give place to an intelligent interest and an 
operative abhorrence. 

2. That, slavery being a sin infecting the body of Christ, 
our churches should enter upon a thorough, and, if needful, 
protracted course of expostulation, argument, and rebuke 
with slaveholding churches ; and, ultimately, if they persist 
in the sin, upon a course of discipline in some sort, so far as 
the process in Matt, xviii. is applicable to inter-church griev- 
ances — one church rebuking another, to which circumstances 
give it a special relation, as the first step ; calling in one or 
two sister churches to aid in the second step ; and if these be 
in vain, as we have no higher appeal on earth, let the incorri- 
gible slaveholding body be unto us as no church of Christ. 
Let an adherent to such church be thenceforth denied a seat 
at our communions — the pastor of such church excluded from 
our desks. Let our larger ecclesiastical bodies adopt a simi- 
lar course with their southern peers. This, after all due 
labor for their reclamation, would result in our disowning as 
Christian, that small portion, we trust, of the southern church 
v/hich would adhere to the sin. Some such course — I say not 
this, necessarily, in its details — ^but some such is demanded, 
and can be devised and employed by our churches. If an}'- 
insist thcitpossibhj some slaves are held from benevolent mo- 
tives, they must admit that it is certain the mass are not. On 
the loosest estimate of slavery, the relation of slaveholder is, 
iwima facie, evidence of flagrant sin ; and in a member of 
Christ's church demands investigation. The southern 
churches have never plead, and never will plead, guiltless, 
unless on the ground that the whole system is righteous. 
These views do not imply that we believe no slaveholder a 
Christian, and no slaveholding body a Christian church ; but 
that, after the point has been earnestly and faithfully labored 
with them, protractedly, fraternally, and scripturally, the 
church or individual persevering in the sin of slavery vitiates 



27 

the requisite evidence of piety. On any view of slavery that 
has been taken in Connecticut, it is such thiit the design of the 
church and the principles of the Gospel loudly demand some 
action of this sort. What it shall be, or how it shall be, it was 
not my purpose to propose, except in outhne. 

Are these demands unreasonable ? Let us see the churches 
and ministry of Connecticut in their true position, deahng 
with all wisdom, yet in good faith and good earnest, against 
the acknowledged sin of slaver}^ and the call on us to dis- 
band will then be of tolerable grace, and to a great extent 
not in vain. But whatever might be the success of such a 
call, the churches would then be, in respect to this inevitable 
and now tormenting topic, ^' first jmre, then peaceable, gentle, 
easy to he entreated, fall of mercy and good fruits, ivithout partiali- 
ty, and without hypocrisy.''^ Their obligation to assume such 
a position, in such haste as the tarnished honor of Christ and 
the bleeding cause of humanity demand, is undiminished by 
any thing the abolitionists may do, or fail to do. 

Entertaining the views which have now been presented, 
I earnestly entreat that this subject may receive among us 
immediate and thorough investigation. I plead for this as 
introductory to some speedy action of an unequivocal charac- 
ter on the part of the churches and pastors in Connecticut, 
such as shall place them in the true position of active, judi- 
cious, indubitable opposition to slavery. On a question like 
this, our sentiments and action ought to be not only such as 
can be understood, but such as cannot he misunderstood. It is 
due to ourselves, to the South, to the suffering slave, and to the 
righteous Gospel we profess, that we yield no longer, by our 
dubious position, even an undesigned support to this sin. 

Tell the South — let me plead with my brethren in the 
churches and of the ministry — tell them in any manner con- 
sistent with mercy and justice, what you do beheve : that the 
system of slavery, and each instance of slaveholding not 
clearly and widely an exception to the system, is heinously 



28 

sinful against God and man ; for I know you do not believe 
less. Tell them, and enter at once upon efforts to convince 
them, that it ought to be immediately and penitently aban- 
doned ; and ultimately tell them, after all suitable labor for 
their purification, that you cannot, by intercommunion with 
them, partake in a sin so gross as slavery. Tell them this 
without counteractive sidethrusts at the abolitionists. Give 
countenance no longer by carefully equalized denunciation of 
slavery and active anti-slavery, to the wdcked misrepresenta- 
tions of us at the south, and elsewhere, as blood-seeking fa- 
natics. Take the position which conscience, and the Gospel, 
and humanity point out, and we will be with you. As it now 
is, standing coolly aloof from action, intent to detect our 
errors, and ready with caustic rebukes for every indiscretion, 
you may congratulate yourselves that our hands are kept 
weak, and the leaven of this ultraism checked ; but it is' at the 
intolerable expense of strengthening the slaveholder in his 
sin. The crime of your abolitionist bretliren is, that, not 
daring to do nothing, they have done what they could. You 
say they have done little, and that imperfectly : it is owing 
in part to the ribaldry and violence of those who knew only 
their name ; in part to the hostility of those who have never 
plead their position was false ; and more, far more, to the 
disheartening aversion, the intense severity in word and deed, 
of those who in their piety have the power to wound us. 



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